Thursday, January 11, 2007

Another subscription site - Footnote.com

I guess I'm one of the last genea-bloggers to write about the new subscription web site at http://www.footnote.com/ - "the place for original documents online." It has promise, but requires a monthly ($10) or yearly subscription ($100) for full access to the available documents.

Richard Eastman has an excellent summary of the currently available documents at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/01/footnotecom_for.html

Of course, you can currently see and obtain a copy of all of these documents at a National Archives repository. The obvious benefit to a subscription is that you can browse these records at home in your jammies or snugs to your hearts content rather than drive to a National Archives facility with the attendant travel time, parking woes, and copy costs.

I put my Seaver surname in the search engine and the Civil War pension cards (not the actual file) popped up, plus some FBI files and some city directories.

I'll pass on this opportunity for now (just as I've passed so far on the other recent new subscription sites like www.findmypast.com www.worldvitalrecords.com and www.genealogybank.com). They appeal to some people, and not to others.

UPDATE 12 January 8 PM: Sarah commented that I was unfair to the www.findmypast.com subscription site. In retrospect, I agree - I was dismissive because I don't have a need to use the site, or the others named, for my own research. But perhaps they would be useful to other researchers. The FindMyPast site is for British Isles records, and Sarah points out that you can "pay as you go" with limited costs to view indexes and pages, rather than pay for a whole year.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Randy, I think you've been too dismissive of http://www.findmypast.com. They do offer subscriptions but also have a variety of pay per view packages. You can get 50 credits for around $10, and no further commitment - a good way to sample some of the British records on offer. You can search for free first to see if there's anything you need.

chriswillis said...

Randy,

Thanks for mentioning Footnote on your site. I work there and would add three things that might be of interest to you and your readership:

1. The Pennsylvania Archives are free to any one who registers.
About: http://www.footnote.com/topicpage.php?tp=88
Browse: http://www.footnote.com/browse.php#185749

2. Keep checking back at Footnote because we're adding millions of new NARA images every month.

3. On Footnote, you can view for free any Member-contributed content or share some of your own.

Thanks